George MacDonald Quotes

Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.

A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear

Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

Real good-breeding is independent of the forms and refinements of what has assumed to itself the name of society.

Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool out of you that you will know yourself for one, and begin to be wise.

He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.

The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God's will is our law; it is fully come when God's will is our will.

The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love.

Doubt may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.

Moderation is the basis of justice.

Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.

God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven.

Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here; and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand.

All that is not God is death.

As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.

A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.

But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide.

There is an aching that is worse than any pain.

The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.

Thou art beautiful because God created thee, but thou art a slave to sin... wickedness has made you ugly.

But I begin to think the chief difficulty in writing a book must be to keep out what does not belong to it.

Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.

No story ever really ends, and I think I know why.

Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life. the latter may be an impulse of a moment of heat; whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.

They will pressure you into doing things that may be unsafe, use your good judgment, and remember, 'I would rather be laughed at, than cried for.'

When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone, they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they felt as if it had never gone.

Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.

Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes.

To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.

To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.

One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve.

In the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow.

Come, then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy.

To try to be brave is to be brave.

I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossibility, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind.

Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the door she must not enter.

I want to help you grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first.

No man can make haste to be rich without going against the will of God, in which case it is the one frightful thing to be successful.

The birds, the poets of the animal creation - what though they never get beyond the lyrical! - awoke to utter their own joy, and awake like joy in others of God's children.

There is no inborn longing that shall not be fulfilled. I think that is as certain as the forgiveness of sins.

The region of the senses is the unbelieving part of the human soul.

Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace?

All haste implies weakness.

And so all growth that is not towards God Is growing to decay.

I dare not say with Paul that I am the slave of Christ, but my highest aspiration and desire is to be the slave of Christ.

God never gave man a thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.

I wondered over again for the hundredth time what could be the principle which, in the wildest, most lawless, fantastically chaotic, apparently capricious work of Nature, always kept it beautiful.